Best Assault Tank variant? – Battlefield 1

What’s up guys, Rogue-9 here! After my recent video breaking down the A7V heavy tank, I tallied up your requests from the comments section and although the Ft-17 light tank and Mark V Landship received quite a number of votes, the overall winner was the St. Chamond Assault Tank. So, how effective are the different variants against infantry or other vehicles? Let’s find out! We’ll kick things off with the main weapon that you will have available as the driver, the 75mm Canon de Saint-Chamond or the model 1897 field gun of the same calibre. And yes, you can even see the different types of main gun modelled in-game. Look at that one; it looks so much more powerful! As always, each tank variant has two different types of ammo for the driver: The Field Assault Tank fires either low velocity high explosive ammo or canister shells, the Gas Assault Tank fires delayed fuse shells or gas grenades and the Standoff Assault Tank fires a high velocity HE round or the front mounted HMG.

After the last video on the A7V, analysing the Field Assault tank’s ammo choices in terms of their damage capabilities is easy, since both the HE & canister shells work exactly the same the equivalent shells for the heavy tank. Direct impact damage against infantry will take out anyone, including sentries and the blast damage of 112 points is enough for a one-shot-kill on most infantry, even those running the Flak perk. Once a player is running Juggernaut or Flak and Juggernaut combined, you are going to need at least two near misses though.

Damage against vehicles is also the same as that of the heavy tank, requiring 6 shots to kill heavy armour, three shots to kill light armour, four for the light tank’s turret and five for the tail plate. The canister shell contains 36 projectiles that are devastating up to 36m distance but become rather weak once they reach their lowest damage potential at 78m.

Damage against vehicles is zero. The gas shells fired by the Gas Assault Tank are modelled just like the standard gas grenades for the infantry. Direct hits against enemy infantry with these gas canisters travelling at 150m/s will give them a nasty old bruise while the gas will do 15 points of damage per second in a radius of up to 5m for 15s. Much more fun than smelly old gas shells though are the delayed fuse charges. Lob these sparkling little firecrackers at infantry, vehicles or buildings for an instant injection of joy into your life as you see their world come crashing down around them. As with the HE shells, direct hits against regular infantry will kill instantly but the armour of elite troops will actually bounce the shots with minimal damage.

The explosive blast of the shells will insta-kill infantry, as well as infantry running Flak and if you lob one of these babies into window of a building good things will happen rather quickly. The gas grenades are, unsurprisingly, no threat to enemy vehicles at all but (and this did surprise me a bit) the delayed fuse shells are actually quite good. Damage against both types of armour is a little lower than the HE rounds we discussed earlier but you can still take out heavies in six shots and lights in 5. And although the damage stats here are not exceptional, there is a little advantage with this type of ammo. Since they will always bounce off of the side of an enemy tank and then cause blast damage, it doesn’t matter what angle you shoot your opponents at, you will never end up with a ricochet. And not only that, but the damage also stays consistent, no matter which part of the light tank you hit.

So while the Gas Assault Tank is primarily a close range anti-infantry tank, it is also quite capable of dealing with vehicles. That is, if you can figure out the hold over to be able to hit your targets in the first place. Both types of ammo have very low muzzle velocities and therefore end up with quite an extreme ballistic curve and to make matters even more complex, their velocities are also slightly different which means that you have to vary your point of aim, depending on which ammo you are using. And finally, over to the Standoff Assault Tank and here, things become quite simple again. The damage done by the high velocity 75mm HE rounds is exactly the same as for the low velocity and this is against all types of targets.

“But what then is the difference?!?” I hear you cry. Well, according to the Symthic code dump the difference is supposedly the muzzle velocity. Ok… how about we compare the two guns side by side firing from pretty much the same position with the same point of aim? Ok, the low velocity shell on the left is supposed to fly at 150 m/s, while the right at 222 m/s and that’s definitely not what we’re seeing here.

Let’s maybe compare the low velocity shells to the Heavy Tank’s HE shells…. And they’re actually a bit faster but that could be down to differences in drag. So it seems that the Field variant and the Standoff variant of the St. Chamond have essentially the same gun, despite what the in game description and even the game’s code would have us believe. The secondary weapons for the Standoff St. Chamond is of course a driver controlled heavy machine gun which does the standard vehicle HMG damage (4-6 shots to kill depending on the distance; 3 shots to the head) and this in fact, leads us quite nicely on to the passenger controlled weapons, because these are the exact same guns.

Each of the three tank variants has a rear gunner and two side gunners, while the Gas and Field variants also have the frontal HMG available to a passenger. So this further differentiates the Standoff variant but in terms of the question: “Which setup is better?” the answer probably is: “It depends.” If you have a reliable gunner with you, preferably someone you have voice coms with, then having a forward facing machine gun and cannon operated by different people can be an advantage, since you can target different enemies at the same time. On the other hand if you’re playing solo, then it is better to have control over the HMG yourself since it is definitely a better weapon than the canister shot.

But that’s it already in terms of the passengerarmament, so let’s compare the final aspects of these tanks, the gadgets and the bonus armour. The Field Assault Variant comes with the standard 10 HP quick repair kit, excellent for getting out of sticky situations and the tank’s primary ability is a very unique pigeon artillery strike. Calling in this strike is a high risk/high reward strategy since you will be left immobile for 10s while 8 rounds of artillery are fired in a circular pattern all around you. Not only are you left vulnerable during those 10s but the artillery will also cause around 16 points of damage to you and sure, that’s not a lot but when you’re heavily damaged already, it can be just that little bit too much.

Enemy vehicles will take similar damage, so triggering the ability while in a battle with another tank is pretty much suicide. You won’t do much damage to the enemy and they will have a full 10 seconds to hit you with everything they have. No, this strike is meant to clear out infantry in a large radius around you and it does this exceedingly well. Blast damage for each of the air burst shells, may only take about half the health of an enemy soldier (depending on Flak and/or juggernaut) but the range of each blast is so large, that they overlap meaning that pretty much anyone caught in the circle of shells is as good as toast! The Gas Assault Tank is all about close up combat and to support this role, the tank comes with the quick repair as well as the ability to drop a poison gas canister. This canister functions in exactly the same way as the ones you can shoot from your canon and can not only injure or kill enemies up to 5m away but can also fulfil a similar role as a smoke screen and allow you to cover your retreat.

To further support the close range anti-infantry role of this variant, it comes with additional armour skirts around the tracks. Taking a couple of direct hits to the exposed undercarriage will normally immobilise you tank until you can repair but the additional armour of the gas tank makes it virtually impossible for enemies to get at you tracks from the sides. And finally, the gadgets of the Standoff Assault Tank complement its longer range support role. You give up the quick repair ability and instead you have a smoke screen for desperate escapes and a searchlight that will 3D spot any enemy you shine it at. This search light can be an excellent tool on the battlefield. It can help you uncover large numbers of enemies (both for yourself and your teammates to shoot at) and you can also use it as a mine sweeping tool. Shine it ahead of yourself in high risk areas and you will see the any mines highlighted in game, as well as on the mini-map.

At closer ranges, you can even use the searchlight to temporarily blind your opponents but do be aware, that your own 1st person view is also a little bit obscured as long as the light is on. So there are all the facts but which one of these tanks is the best? Well, I think these three tanks are actually quite well balanced and each of them can shine in different situations. Up until now, the Standoff variant has always been my favourite. The smoke screen and searchlight are both very useful tools to have and getting access to an HMG as the driver is super for dealing with larger numbers of infantry.

The HE canon is perfectly adequate for taking on other vehicles making this a very well rounded tank. The Gas variant, although clearly geared towards fighting enemy infantry (especially when they’re hiding out in buildings) is still very effective against enemy armour and I really enjoy lobbing around sparkling little cannon balls of doom. The only drawback of this tank is that the driver has no way of defending against aircraft. Not only is it very hard to hit a moving plane with your slow moving projectiles but when you do, rather than giving you that satisfying one-shot-kill that almost all other tanks will give you, you end up doing barely any damage… even against piddly little fighter planes. This, combined with the underwhelming gas grenade gadget puts this variant in the number two spot for me. And finally, the Field Assault variant is well equipped to deal with enemy armour and the forward MG can be great when manned by a competent passenger, giving you a decent anti-infantry capability as well.

But he artillery barrage, although highly effective, does require you to get right up close and personal with the enemy infantry and sit there for 10s. That is normally an easy way to end up getting spammed by explosives and grenades. Rushing in with a valuable tank is not something I like doing and that’s why this variant is my personal number three pick (although, that by no way means that it’s bad).

But of course, as always, those last few thoughts are just my personal opinion. Do let me know your thoughts in the comments section below, which of these three tanks is your favourite and which vehicle do you want me to explore next? Coming up in the end screen, as well as in the description below are links to my Twitter, Facebook and Discord. Do go ahead and also follow me there for news, insights and updates that I post in between my videos. You should especially follow me on Twitter, I’ve become quite active there, well worth it (or so I’m told!). And with that guys, thank you so much for watching, I hope you enjoyed the video andI will see you in the next episode! [Outtakes]: Which does the standard HMD jammage…. [Outtakes]: HMD jam… What the F…. Which d… Which…. Oh God dammit… I… I give up… STANDARD…. H… M… G… Damage… Urgh….